My RAM usage slowly creeps up from 35-55% usage through the day...why?

[Meghiddo]

I have a gadget that keeps track of physical memory usage and after re booting my system the physical memory usage is usually in the 30% range. After about 12 hours of running it has crept to around 55%. I looked at my running processes before and after. When I start there are 51 processes running and hours later there are only 53 running, the extras being one for my media player, the other for firefox.
Is this a normal thing to happen or something I should be concerned about?

[Meghiddo]

it has now crept up to 60%, what is going on here?!?

still no new processes running either

[Meghiddo]

anyone?

[Gnomad]

Well, when you reboot your system it clears everything out of memory. As you use your computer and open and close different programs, the programs are loaded into memory, some of the files needed for different programs will stay in memory until it is moved by either a newly opened program or another reboot.

[Meghiddo]

yeah it always goes back down after a reboot. so I guess this is just normal activity then? dang gadget just made me worried for nothing lol

[guitarist809]

You can always buy more ram to slow down the process

[cHiNgY1788]

firefox chews up memory
if you open a tab firefox saves it in memory (in case you close it and want it back up again)
What I see is firefox just increases in memory usage, the more tabs you open (and then close) the more memory firefox uses
I think in firefox 3 they fix these problems

but then firefox taking up 20% of 3GB of RAM is unlikely
theres probably some other programs that do what firefox does and chew up memory

but with 3GB of memory I wouldn't worry

[guitarist809]

Try and figure out what process is using up so much memory.

Also, I know every computer is different, but when I was using Vista 32bit, it only found 2.5gigs of my 4 gigs of ram. If you go to 64bit, you *might* see a performance increase. But your computer might be using all three gigs.

[cHiNgY1788]

only 2.5?
should be 3.25 or something eh
if you do go 64 bit and you have all the drivers you need
it will run like the wind

[Meghiddo]

Originally Posted by guitarist809

Try and figure out what process is using up so much memory.

Also, I know every computer is different, but when I was using Vista 32bit, it only found 2.5gigs of my 4 gigs of ram. If you go to 64bit, you *might* see a performance increase. But your computer might be using all three gigs.

the system picks up 3069mb of physical memory (that is 3gb right?).
It is a new system, I have just been restarting once a day for now :\

[Alexmb]

Try using a program such as RamBooster - it helps clear some RAM and latency issues, sometimes, I can jump from 500mb to 750mb after a day of use.